by Natalie Dean
“Gentlemen, if you are for one second accusing me of murdering my own husband, you have got another thing coming! How dare you walk into my house – the day I put my love into the ground – and tell me that you believe I am the one responsible for his death? How dare you?!” Barbara didn’t bother keeping her voice down, and by the time she had finished speaking, she was shouting at the men.
The sheriff rose from his seat, clearly doing his best to keep the situation under control.
“It’s my job to get to the bottom of this murder, Ma’am, and that means I need to investigate every possible outlet. I didn’t say that you were responsible for his death, but I am telling you what we have found so far. I’m going to be stopping by in a few days to discuss this further with you, so don’t leave town.”
Chapter 3 – Decisions
“I simply can’t believe the audacity of it! To say such a thing to a woman who is mourning the death of her husband!” Melissa shook her head as she tapped her spoon against the top of her teacup. Barbara nodded as she sat down at the table, wrapping her shawl tightly around her shoulders.
She enjoyed visiting her neighbor, even more so now that her own house felt so empty and cold. Melissa had offered to give her tea any time she needed it, which had been often over the past few days. Barbara picked up her mug and lifted it to her lips, taking a sip of the hot liquid and letting it fill every part of her being with warmth.
At least it was some kind of feeling.
“I can’t believe anyone would think that I could do such a thing. I loved Mark dearly, he was the love of my life,” she felt the tears well up in her eyes and did nothing to stop them from rolling down her cheeks. Melissa reached across the table and put her hand on her friend’s arm.
“I know you didn’t do it. Clearly whoever did is trying to frame you,” she spoke lowly, and Barbara suddenly looked up with shock in her eyes.
“You are absolutely right! But why? What did we ever do to anyone? We’ve always been modest folks, giving to charity, keeping to ourselves, doing what we can to get along with the world. I don’t see any reason why anyone would feel the need to do anything to us.” She caught a sob in her throat before it managed to escape, but Melissa rose from the table and began walking back and forth in the room.
“The only thing I can think of is your wealth. You and Mark were the wealthiest people in this entire part of the city, and yes, you have been most generous and kind with it, but that’s not enough for some people.” Melissa shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, letting her eyes search the floor as she was deep in thought.
“But if they wanted our money, then why wouldn’t they have just murdered the both of us? The lights were out long enough for that to happen, and I should think that it would be a lot riskier to try to slip the knife under my seat without me noticing than to simply be done with us both!” Barbara looked up at her friend as she continued to walk back and forth in the room, her hands clasped behind her back now as though she were a teacher lecturing a class.
“Unless there is some other reason for you still being alive. Think about it, Barbara, if he were to get the blame shifted to being on you, then you are the one who is going to be arrested – that means” – her voice trailed off, and Barbara’s eyes widened. She knew exactly what it meant. If she were to be found guilty of this crime, then she would be the one wearing a noose around her neck. Instinctively, she put her hand around her throat before quickly removing it and looking down at the tea in her cup.
“Or, perhaps there is something else this individual wants from you. Have you noticed anyone acting strange around you lately?” Melissa asked, pausing to look at her friend once more. Barbara sat silently for a moment, trying to recall anything that she found to be out of the ordinary.
“Everyone has been acting strangely, but I know that’s just because they are uncomfortable. What do you say to a woman who is in this situation, after all?” She shrugged, unable to think of anything that stood out to her as remarkable.
“Well, why don’t you try to think back to before this happened – can you think of anyone that stood out to you as acting different – or like they didn’t like your husband?” Melissa knew she was talking about a delicate subject, and she did her best to be as understanding as possible, but she also felt that she was onto something.
“Mark always had people coming in and out of the house. Yes, there were some people that I didn’t like as well as others, but isn’t that to be expected? I mean, perhaps someone that I thought was acting strangely was merely someone I didn’t care for?” Barbara looked at her friend with worry in her eyes, and Melissa just shook her head.
“I don’t know, Barbara. Perhaps you should really think about what happened in the days before he was murdered. I loved Mark, you know that, but perhaps there was someone he was involved with that wasn’t such a good person.” Melissa sat down at the table once more, and Barbara shook her head.
“But if the officers are already suspecting that I am the person who did it, what are they going to do for me? I feel that my interactions with them have only been trying to get me to admit to something that I didn’t do!” She put her face in her hands and drew in a long breath before letting it out again. Her body quivered as she did so, and once again Melissa put her hand on her friend.
“I don’t know, but I think you might be in very real danger. I don’t like the sound of this, at all, and I hate to think that you are alone in that house all night. What if someone were to break in and do the same to you?” Melissa’s own voice shook as she spoke, and Barbara shook her head.
“I don’t think they would, or they would have when they had the chance before. There must be something else that this person is after. What do I do?” she shook her head as she looked out the window, and Melissa sighed.
“The only thing you can do. You’ve got to get out of here, as soon as you possibly can, too. I suspect that this person is going to keep planting evidence against you, making it harder and harder for you to prove to the sheriff and his men that you are innocent.” Melissa looked out the window, then added, “You have to disappear.”
“How do I do that?” Barbara asked, not at all liking the sound of her friend’s suggestion, but feeling that she had no other option. Melissa turned her focus back on Barbara.
“There is one way.”
Chapter 4 – A Shot at Redemption
Barbara walked through the general store, looking absentmindedly at the products that lined the shelves. It had been three days since her discussion with Melissa, and she still didn’t know what she made of it.
Her friend had suggested that she become a mail order bride – a notion Barbara had never known existed. The concept of finding a man through an ad in the paper, then moving across the country to somewhere she’d never been to marry him sounded so crazy it almost made her laugh.
But, at the same time, Barbara knew she was running out of other options. The sheriff was becoming increasingly suspicious of her, not revealing what evidence he had found, but insisting that he was finding more and more evidence to suggest that she had a bigger part in the murder than she wanted to admit.
At the same time, she was finding it harder to sleep at night, knowing that at any moment someone could break into her home and possibly harm her in the same way her husband had been killed. Though she tried to convince herself that if the murderer wanted her also gone, he would have already killed her, she found it impossible to feel safe anywhere she went in town.
Not only did she have to worry about this stress, but at the same time, she knew she was quickly becoming the talk of the town. The way the men and women looked at her on the street as they passed, it was evident they had heard that she was suspected to be the one who murdered her husband, and there was only mounting evidence to say that it was so.
Barbara avoided making eye contact with anyone as she walked through the aisles of the general store. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to ask her
how she was holding up, or if there was anything they might be able to do for her. She wanted to be left alone, entirely alone. She wanted the nightmare that had become her life to be over, and she wanted to know what it was like to be happy once more.
Since she was already in the general store, Barbara decided to give her friend’s suggestion a chance, and she walked over to a stack of papers that was sitting on the counter.
“Excuse me, are these current?” she asked the clerk who had been watching her like a hawk, though he was doing his best to appear as though he was reading a book. He glanced up in surprise at her addressing him, then gave a curt nod. She thanked him and grabbed the pile, then tucked them under her arm and left.
It was unusual for her to read any papers. That had always been Mark’s hobby. If there were anything he found interesting, he would share it with her. Otherwise, she was fine with letting him be the one who knew what was going on around town and the country.
So, when Barbara arrived home, she didn’t have any idea where to even begin with the papers. There were many news articles inside, and she saw a few that were referring to her situation as well as her husband’s case, but she refused to allow herself to read them, knowing that they were only going to upset her further. She moved past the politics and the news from around the country, telling herself that she had more pressing things to worry about than who was the best candidate for the next election.
At last, she came to the back of the paper. And that’s when she gasped to herself.
She couldn’t believe all the different ads and posts she found. There were dozens of men from all over the western part of the country looking for women who would be willing to come out and marry them. Some claimed to be farmers, others were ranchers. Some held jobs such as bakers or even bankers.
It seemed that there were every occupation and age she could think of looking for a girl who would be willing to move away from everything she knew to come to the West to be a bride. At first, Barbara laughed at the idea, but when she thought about her own situation, she couldn’t help but feel grateful.
If it weren’t for men like these, then she would find herself trapped in a bad situation and completely unable to get away from it. And she knew she was running out of time.
However, Barbara soon found that it wasn’t going to be an easy choice. With all the different ads coming from all over the country, she didn’t know how she was going to possibly choose the one that would be right for her. But then, she wondered, would any of them be right for her? She had fallen in love with and married the man she had wanted to spend the rest of her life with, now she was being forced into a situation she didn’t agree with, all to escape a situation she knew wasn’t going to end well for her.
Suddenly, her eyes fell on an ad that stood out from the rest.
Lawyer Looking for a Bride
33-year-old handsome lawyer looking for a young woman with an eye toward matrimony. Live in Wyoming territory in South Pass City and can comfortably support myself and a wife.
Jake Cowell
Barbara read over the ad a few times, making sure that she didn’t miss any details that would indicate that he would be a bad idea. She thought it funny that he was a lawyer, considering her current plight, but she also promised herself that if she were to leave, she would be leaving everything behind.
Barbara also thought it interesting that she recognized the name of the town Mr. Cowell lived in. South Pass City. A couple of years prior, her husband had told her of a story in the paper of a woman named Bess Brown – a wealthy woman who had gone to South Pass City to escape a malicious gang member who had brutally murdered her husband.
Though Barbara didn’t know all the details of what had happened, she knew that the Miss Brown had narrowly missed being murdered herself, though the men responsible for the crime were now locked up in jail in New York City.
She could put her money in the bank and have it wired when she needed it – something that may not be a bad idea considering she didn’t know anything about this man. Barbara lingered over the ad for a few moments in silence. She tried reading through others and seeing if she could find one that sounded like a better match, but no matter how hard she tried, she found that she kept coming back to the same ad again and again.
There was something simply irresistible about the writing. Something she found intriguing. Of course, she would have chosen to have Mark back in a heartbeat, but she found that in her situation, she was almost excited to meet this man from Wyoming.
Barbara took a moment to breathe a quick prayer to herself. If there was one thing she had learned from her husband, it was to never make any big decisions without first asking God what His will would be. A tear rolled down her cheek as she thought of Mark, and she moved her lips as she silently said “Amen,”
With a final surge of resolution, she tore the ad from the paper and walked over to her writing desk, pulling out her finest stationary. After several moments of debating what to write, she began. Barbara was extensive in her description of herself, but she intentionally hid many of the details of her life.
The last thing she wanted her new husband to know was that she was suspected of murdering her last one.
Chapter 5 – Running Away
Barbara looked around her house, trying to find anything she may be leaving behind. She had received a letter back from Mr. Cowell, and he was most eager for her to start her journey. She thought it very kind of him to include money along with the letter to pay for her train ticket, as she hadn’t told him she was a wealthy woman herself.
She hadn’t really told him much – primarily just what she looked like. As she didn’t have any photos of herself alone, she knew she couldn’t send him one, or he would be certain to ask who the man was in the photo with her. At 33 years old, she knew he was quite a bit older than herself, but it didn’t both her. If he were still alive, Mark would have turned 30 in just a couple of months.
In the weeks it took to receive the letter back from Mr. Cowell, Barbara had been through several interrogations with the sheriff. More than once they came into her home, searching for anything else that could be considered part of the crime, but each time they ended up leaving without finding a thing. Barbara thought it disrespectful that they never apologized to her for barging in on her like they did, nor did they act as though there was a chance they were wrong and she was innocent after all.
At the end of each interaction, the sheriff would always remind her that they were investigating every source they could imagine, and advise her that it was best for her to stay in town until they were able to come to a conclusion in the case.
Barbara, on the other hand, knew that it was only a matter of time before he arrested her. She could sense it with every interaction they had. It appeared to her that he wasn’t looking for information to see if it could have been someone else, he was looking for enough information to convince a jury that she had, in fact, murdered Mark that night.
But, Barbara knew she was innocent, and though she didn’t like the idea of the sheriff coming into her home to go through her things, she knew that he would never find anything that would convince a jury she would have done such a thing.
Mark and Barbara had a wonderful marriage. She’d agreed to marry him when she was just eighteen years old, and he had promised to take her to London when they had been married for ten years. It was a trip she had very much been looking forward to. In addition, Mark had been a wealthy man all his life, and Barbara herself had come from money, so there was no reason to believe that she would have murdered him for financial gain.
Especially since it was well-known around town that Mark was always doting on his bride, and there wasn’t a thing she could possibly want that he wouldn’t give her.
As Barbara walked through her house one final time, she couldn’t help but feel a wave of sadness wash over her. Just weeks before, she never would have imagined herself in the position she was in right now. She never would have t
hought that she would become a widow so young, nor that her husband would pass on in such a terrible way. She wanted nothing more than justice for him, but she knew the longer she stayed, the more likely it was she was going to end up in the ground next to him.
Barbara had already taken most of the money out of the house and deposited it into the bank, telling the banker that she wanted to ensure that it was secure without her husband around to protect her anymore. She knew that she ought to do that as soon as she wrote the letter to Mr. Cowell, knowing that if she deposited a lot of money shortly before she left, the sheriff would be on her trail faster than she would be able to reach Wyoming.
Barbara closed the door behind her and slid her key into the heavy lock. No doubt it wouldn’t be long before the sheriff – or whoever murdered her husband – broke into the house, but she felt better knowing she had left it locked. She stopped by Melissa’s house to tell her friend goodbye and left the key in her keeping.
“I don’t know if he’s going to come to you for information or not. I wouldn’t doubt it,” Barbara said as the two women embraced. Melissa had tears in her eyes, while Barbara had tears running down her cheeks.
“I don’t care if he does. Let him come – all I care about is that you get out of here and that you are safe. There’s something not right about this situation, and the longer you stay, the more likely it is something bad is going to happen to you.” Mellissa lightly kissed her friend on the cheek, giving her a final pat before Barbara gathered her carpet bag and left.
It was early in the morning – the sun was just barely starting to come up over the horizon, and she knew she had to hurry. Barbara had intentionally chosen the earliest train leaving the station, knowing that few people would be around to see her board. She had no knowledge of the sheriff actively watching her, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
